Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

This conversation is moderated according to USA TODAY's
community rules.
Please read the rules before joining the discussion.

Peter Guralnick, Priscilla Presley, others remember Scotty Moore

Bob Mehr, The Commercial Appeal
Published 10:43 a.m. CT June 29, 2016

CLOSE

Musician Scotty Moore performs for the crowd at the 50th Anniversary of Rock 'N Roll Reunion celebration on July 5, 2004 at Sun Studio in Memphis. Moore played lead guitar on all of Elvis Presley Sun Records recordings. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)

FILE - In this 1957 file photo, Elvis Presley performs on tour in the summer of 1957, with Scotty Moore on guitar, left, and Bill Black on the stand up bass, right. Moore, the pioneering rock guitarist who played on 'Hound Dog' and other early Elvis Presley hits, has died. He was 84. (AP Photo/File) (Photo: Anonymous)

(Editor's note: Bucky Barrett was misidentified in an earlier version of this story.)

Even as his health declined and his days waned, Scotty Moore was still doing what he always did: radiating humility and humanity, giving lessons on life and music in his own quiet way.

Like so many, Memphian Matt Ross-Spang — a Grammy-winning engineer and guitarist — was a devoted student of Moore, the famed Elvis Presley sideman, guitar great and rock legend. Along with a group of friends, including veteran Music City players Billy Swan and Bucky Barrett, they would visit Moore in his Nashville home, particularly in the last year, after Moore had lost his longtime companion Gail Pollock.

'We would hang out and bug him with questions about old gear and equipment. We would watch old westerns and talk about anything and everything. Often times the subject of Elvis or records he worked on would come up. Whatever he talked about I was fascinated by all of it,' said Ross-Spang. The last time they congregated, a week ago, the usual western movie had been replaced by a screening of 'Jaws 2.' 'It was just on TV and we all got mesmerized by it somehow,' Ross-Spang said with a chuckle. 'He was in good spirits: laughing, joking, the same old Scotty. To be with him, in his presence, you would never know how important he was and how massive his contributions had been.'

One of the foundational figures in rock and roll, a profoundly influential guitarist, and the musician who helped Elvis Presley become The King, Moore died Tuesday in Nashville, after a period of ill-health. He was 84.

Along with bassist Bill Black, Moore was a member of Elvis' original band, the Blue Moon Boys, playing on the singer's epochal Sun Records sides, and continuing to work with Presley into his career with RCA. His playing would make him perhaps the first guitar hero of the rock era, and he would shape the genre and several generations of musicians to come, from the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards to Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page to the White Stripes' Jack White.

Moore's impact was felt for more than 60 years, by those who knew and loved him, and those who were simply touched by his music and what Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick called his 'quiet dignity.'

'Scotty didn't look for tribute, he didn't believe in myth,' said Guralnick. 'The music he made didn't require a mythic structure. It just required him being himself — and that's what he brought to everything he did.'

In recent years, Ross-Spang came to know Moore well, having followed his trail, first working as an engineer at Sun Studios before moving onto the Phillips Recording Service. In 2014, a BBC crew came to Tennessee to do a documentary program on Moore, named after his 1964 solo album — uncharacteristically immodest, but factually accurate — 'The Guitar That Changed the World.'

'We went to Sun, with [neo-rockabilly artist] Chris Isaak, and since Scotty didn't play guitar anymore, he brought his old Chet Atkins guitar for me to play. We did 'That's All Right' and 'Blue Moon of Kentucky,'' recalled Ross-Spang. 'Scotty got real into it and actually started producing us. The next time I visited him he gave me all his guitar pedals, and guitar cables and his old gig bag. That was Scotty — he was always teaching, always helping, always giving.'

Jerry Phillips — younger son of Elvis producer and Sun Records founder Sam Phillips — said he and his daughter traveled to Nashville a few months ago to see Moore, before his health began to decline. 'Scotty showed me a couple of licks on guitar. ... We talked about guitar playing and music, and how much I respected him … how much he respected my dad and Elvis. And the feeling was mutual.'

Presley's ex-wife Priscilla Presley echoed that sentiment in a statement on Tuesday: 'Elvis loved Scotty dearly and treasured those amazing years together, both in the studio and on the road. Scotty was an amazing musician and a legend in his own right. The incredible music that Scotty and Elvis made together will live forever and influence generations to come.'

Guralnick said that Moore's qualities — his honesty, his humility, his egoless support of Presley — were essential. 'Here he was meeting Elvis, who's 19 and Scotty is 22, and from the time they first encountered one another Scotty was the 'old man' — because he possessed that innate dignity and stability. That was really what Sam Phillips felt Scotty could bring to the Elvis equation. Sam said Scotty was the most honest man he'd ever met. That if Scotty told you something, you could always take it to the bank. Sam said 'Never disbelieve Scotty.''

Beyond his personality, it was Moore's playing that helped him midwife a musical and, ultimately, cultural revolution. 'It wasn't that he gave Elvis musical direction but he gave Elvis a context to make his music,' said Guralnick. 'He wasn't a virtuosic guitarist, he wasn't looking to overshadow Elvis, but he was looking to present the perfect context and complement.'

His playing drew on many musical inspirations — the blues of Lowell Fulson, the jazz of Tal Farlow, the country of Chet Atkins — but the results were purely Moore. 'Scotty was moved by all kinds of music. The way in which he was moved, he took that and translated it, and put it back into his own music, uniquely,' said Guralnick. 'Whether it was the extravagant solos he took on 'Too Much' or 'Hound Dog' or the more classic sounds of songs like 'Mystery Train' or 'That's Alright,' he brought to it a tremendous drive — a rhythmic drive, but an emotional drive as well. For as soft-spoken and thoughtful a person as when was, the music bears out a fire that existed in Scotty, and the passion that existed in his music.'

Read or Share this story: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/06/29/peter-guralnick-priscilla-presley-others-remember-scotty-moore/90568374/